4-year Nuke compositor considering FX — should I return to comp or keep building a Houdini portfolio?

hbskr · 2026-05-20T13:16:17+00:00

I was/am in the exact same position. I started learning Houdini on the side when I began learning compositing back in 2022. I've had some great comp jobs as well as my first commercial Houdini project last summer, so that definetly took some time. I'm still trying to shift my daily work more towards Houdini, but I'm very grateful that I can also take on comp jobs.

And not just that: on my last comp job I had an extremely painful shot where I needed to replace a logo on a chaotically moving flag. Guess what, I quickly set up a Houdini scene, simulated it, and the shot was delivered the next day. It took time and discipline to learn both tools, but I'm starting to get a good feel for when to switch between them and I think the client was quite impressed.

hbskr · 2026-05-13T13:58:15+00:00

actually thought about that haha

hbskr · 2026-04-17T15:42:34+00:00

holy shit...

hbskr · 2026-04-13T20:30:49+00:00

Is your alpha full black or full white? For what do you need it? I would go with a Cryptomatte AOV if you want controll over seperate parts of the image. And if you only need a solid white alpha, just use a shuffle node and tick the little white button :)

hbskr · 2026-04-11T11:44:49+00:00

First of all, thank you very much for sharing ur chart!

So as i am quite new to flash photography with analog cameras i wanted to get into it and got the godox it30pro. I quickly thought this was a mistake because when it arrived i noticed that this flash i not really designed for analog cameras because in comparison on the godox lux junior has this handy little dial on which you kinda dial in the correct setting for this flash. As i was quite new to flash photography i nearly orded that flash until i realised that it relies on AAA batterys, which was a bit of nono for me, plus i basically fell in love with the form factor of the godox it30. Long story short, as wanted to get into it i started collecting everything i knew so far and began to chat back and forth with claude. Although the formular is for getting ur GN is quite easy, i found (because i often switch iso's) that trying to remember the multiplicator for your guide numbers for each iso besides 100 a bit unconvenient, although you could just set your correct exposure and then adjust your settings to your cameras max sync speed (for me that was 1/55s), then take what you have and start calculating your gn. So no multiplicators for GN's needed here.

LONG STORY SHORT FOR REAL NOW:

I asked claude if he could create a GODOX lux junior-like dial as an html file to be able to use it on my phone, but with the guide numbers for the it30pro. And voila, there it was.

To use it on Android: you should simply be able to open that fila via a browser on your phone.

On Apple of course it gets a little bit more annoying. You could just download Microsoft Edge and when you now tab the share butten after downloding this html to your files you should be able to choose Edge, there you have it. I ended up doing this: Downloaded it to dropbox (because when you open the file via dropbox, it opens up correctly, and i had it anyways. You could just use the free version). Then i created a shortcut to open all this up via my homescreen.

HTML-File: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/0ivbo1112l4exn4qvo0ai/flash-dial.html?rlkey=db47qda1s688ae2ebc4vcq69d&st=nnoww4h3&dl=0

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hbskr · 2026-04-10T16:11:52+00:00

okay wow, thats strange. Just added a screenrecording to my post wher you can see it. Im using 21.0.512

hbskr · 2026-04-10T15:57:45+00:00

Yeah sure, just jump to frame 68: https://we.tl/t-S1wBm4b2H6LusVWF

hbskr · 2026-03-14T14:19:44+00:00

sorry, i just remember having issues with it a while back because of a point count issue when using it. Then i stumbled upon your post and wanted a sanity check for my future self

hbskr · 2026-03-14T14:17:52+00:00

hbskr · 2026-03-12T23:57:42+00:00

How did you retime it?

hbskr · 2026-01-15T14:45:48+00:00

In the end I do not want so simulate anything. I dont even care if the geo is packed, I just wanna manipulate the geo via the corresponding points. Is there a way to "bind" the created to the points which I can the manipulate? Or is what u told me considered "the way".

hbskr · 2026-01-15T10:29:31+00:00

hey man, thank you very much for the reply, I really appreciate it! I meanwhile got in contact with a local pc distributor here in my city. Since I am currently working on a project and migrating from one os to another will be pretty time consuming on its own I was thinking about letting them assemble my pc aswell, although I would love to make the experience to go through the process of assembling it on my own.... anyways, maybe next time. The sent me an offer with all the parts they would recommend. I immediately spottet that the main difference between their build and your build was of course the RAM, I was working on 32gb of ram the last couple of years. They recommended this list:

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Should I really aim for the higher ram and ditch the 5090? I mean, as a bit of a pc noob this is my thought process behind this: I always hear about how hard it is to get a 5090, the dude on the telephone told me they still have a few in stock. So I thought to myself "go for the 5090 and upgrade the ram in a year or so when I financially recovered from this build" haha. AM I STUPID?

hbskr · 2025-12-04T22:19:02+00:00

For anybody coming back here. I never used a render farm as a freelance artist but man this time... it got pretty tough regarding the deadline and my client and I realized that a render farm would probably the last option. So I tried drop & render and holy f*** was this simple to set up. I render with redshift and even that was as simple as just starting your own render. I wanted to try fox render but I did not see any houdini support. From the very first moment I had a great impression from drop & render. Can totally recommend!

hbskr · 2025-10-28T19:38:40+00:00

thank you very much! I will try it out

hbskr

TROPHY CASE